How to… make Story Cubes (& beautiful memories)

November 5, 2010

Hello! Today I bring you a little “How to” that is very close to my heart: Story Cubes!? Can I do a bit of rambling first and then tell you how to make them? Pretty please!

As you know I do weekly book reviews on books that we are currently reading and adore. Books are fabulous for bonding. Books are fabulous for cuddling. Books are fabulous for development (imagination, vocabulary etc etc). We love books. No doubt about it! Which is why I regularly bombard you with our book choice.!

A little bit about Story Telling

However, have you ever thought about the power of Story Telling? Storytelling has enormous benefits shared with reading, but I believe takes these to another level:

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1) Bonding

2) Bedtime wind down

3) Creative development

4) Learning the spoken word/ improved communication

5) Decision making skills & learning from mistakes

6) Reworking the day and feelings/ understanding your child better

7) Introducing family values and ideas

8- All of these have long term impact and even sets your child up with better “business skills” (believe it or not!)

Story telling is a two way process, bringing you closer together. Children are amazing natural storytellers and we have a wonderful opportunity to nurture this. Enough from me, I could write a whole essay!

Story Cubes

Story telling is hard when you are out of practice. So I made some story cubes that I saw somewhere on my blog hop travels to help me along the way (if you are said blog, please get in touch, so I can link up with you). They are so easy to use that I thought you may like to hear about them too. Basically, you “throw” them and then tell a story using all the images on the cubes. You can take turns developing the story, getting your child to say the next part of the story. You can make it harder by following a certain order. You can make it longer or shorter. You can rethrow your dice. Your choice! There are plenty of paper versions around, but I love these wooden cubes. They are tactile and they fit in a neat little bag and Red Ted loves playing with his! (you can of course make them out of paper and your kids can help colour things in and draw the images, but they won’t last “forever”. Here is a paper cube template. It does make for a nice rainy day activity “together”)

1) Varnish the cube (this will stop the pen running into the grain) and let dry on a cookie rack. I touched up a couple of sides with a second coat, but strictly speaking one should do the trick!

2) Decide on some prompts: I found it useful to think of all the drawings first and to practice drawing a couple. Remember, it does not have to be an artwork your children will love whatever you draw. When I ran out of ideas (I did ours whilst my children were sleeping), I enrolled the help of my eldest for ideas of what to draw on the remaining cubes! It is useful to balance animals, with food/ drink, with colours (if you want to have some), with objects, with methods of transport – maybe have one of each per cube? Include some favourite things, for us this was a bunny and a train!

3) Draw your prompts!

Finished!

I LOVE giving these as gifts and they have been very well received and well enjoyed! Contact me through the comments and I can send you a PDF with some drawing ideas (and why not subscribe to my blog as a “Thank You”?).

Lovely post Maggy! Story telling has been a huge part of our lives and my children are always complimented on their wide vocabulary as a result. The cubes you sent were the beginning of many long tales during our week away and having read this post I am going to get some more and get the children to make their own so we can build up a collection! I’ll post the results! Thank you again lovely lady.xxx

I found your blog through Motivate Me Mondays. I’ve never seen or heard of story cubes before. Brilliant idea and very nicely done! I think it’s so important to foster our children’s creativity and imagination.

Thanks for sharing, I’m sure to make story cubes for my kids, too!
texttussi

I love these, this is such a fantastic idea. Would love to get Pix more involved with stories and the actual storytelling process, especially since the baby has come along bedtime stories are ‘our’ thing and very precious. Might do some with her friends on…I love the idea of giving them as gifts too! I’m not nearly as crafty as you so am not sure how mine will come out but will send you a pic if they’re not too embarrassing!!

I designed a simple folding paper storycube format some years ago – no glueing required (which we also manufacture and sell in packs). Over the years we’ve used them in lots of projects, from storytelling workshops with adults and children to creative commissions by artists – there’s over 180 that can be freely downloaded and printed out here : http://diffusion.org.uk/?cat=9

Last year Proboscis (the non-profit arts org I run) launched a free website, http://bookleteer.com, where you can upload your own images into our StoryCube template and print them out at home. We can also print & die-cut them professionally on card in short runs at low cost. We’re welcoming anyone to try it out as a simple way of making and sharing your own StoryCubes (you can also make downloadable books in our Diffusion eBook format with it).

Love them! On my project list for sure! B’s bedtime normally consists of one book, then a story from Daddy. These would be great for those feeling not-so-creative nights… Thanks for linking up at Feed Me Books Friday!

Thank you all for your fabulously kind comments!! Have forwarded PDFs to those who requested them (please tell me if you haven’t received it and I will resend). We have been celebrating a 1st Birthday at Red Ted HQ so haven’t had time to reply to all you comments individually!!

What a great idea – I’d never heard of story cubes until a few minutes ago. I was stuck for ideas for a little friend for Christmas…now I know just what her and her Mummy would appreciate (they don’t do noisy toys and luurrrve stories!). So, thanks for that. Please would you e-mail me your images for a little pictorial inspiration. Thanks a bunch 🙂

You are right. Storytelling can be so hard when you are out of practice. These will be great. Plus, I have boys. Having something to roll/throw ads to the excitement. We always need something to manipulate to keep them engaged!

I love this idea! I use lots of storytelling, along with movement in my children’s yoga classes. Many of the children I work with have autism or other sensory processing challenges so this is a perfect way to make a visual prompt that will turn the process into a game! I absolutely love the simplicity and the versitility of these blocks! Thank you so much for your fantastic blog articles!

I found this post via Amy Lane’s blog, as I commented on her post, I saw Story cubes on tv a while ago and thought my kids would love them but I haven’t seen them in the shops. Never crossed my mind to make them, these look fantastic!

Just stumbled across your blog and am very impressed as I’m always looking for new activities to do with my daughter, will be subscribing after I’ve finished this comment 🙂 I love the idea of the story cubes – what a great way to aid a child’s development. I’m going to make some of these for my daughter to use in her daily ‘special time’ that we have together. Please could I have a copy of the pdf for drawing ideas. I’m going to make a special bag to keep them in too 🙂 x

Lovely, lovely, lovely. I’ve been story telling with the special needs children I teach for several years and we’ve always used a selection of cards to get us started, but I think that everyone would prefer these and I can already see a topic of making our own sets. Can I have the pdf please. Thanks for a great idea.

These look fantastic my nephew has autism and i think these would help him as he is really struggling at the moment and the usual prompts on slips of paper dont hold his interest. he is also struggling with associating words with pictures im guessing you could put short word onto the cubes as well as pictures. Im not the slightest bit artistic are your really sure you dont want to start selling the cubes !

Love these! Did a set of 6 for my daughter, and for my boyfriend’s son, and am going to get some more cubes to add more pictures to the collection. Have even made a little drawstring bag out of an old baby T-shirt to keep them in! Daughter loves them and is coming up with great stories!

I LOVE this idea.
I have a preschooler that would really really benefit from something like this. Thank you sooooo much for the idea.
If your offer still stands I would love to have the pdf of ideas.
Thanks again.

i have 6 grandkids…..i need some new ideas for xmas gifts to make and i seen this and i said yes what a great idea for them….i have been doing homemade gift for the last 5 years….thank you for your ideas…

Hello, I am sorry to comment so late, but I described these to my homebound friend and she is very interested. If the pdf offer is still available, would you please send it to me? Thanks for reading this.

Hello! I found you through Pinterest! I\’d love the PDF whenever you have a moment. Thank you for your time and for sharing your wonderful ideas! My 3 year old is just getting into story-telling, and I know this will help her have more confidence.

These are completely adorable. You were so right to tell us all a bit about how you use them. I have blocks but I am drawing-challenged. I would so appreciate your PDF. I am hoping it will be a jump-start. Thank you so much.

Hi, I have seen these before on a blog called \’a little bit of this and a little bit of that\’ if maybe that was where you saw them? I know how easy it is to lose track of where you saw things pre-pinterest! I\’d love your PDF though if you have it still? Thanks, Jenni x

Fantastic! I’m a teacher and I’ve done this with students and writing stories but I’m definatey going to adapt that and take it to my little girl. Nothing better that getting their imagination going. Can I please have your PDF too please 🙂

Just found this! Grandmother raising 4 year old granddaughter & husband has had stroke. These story cubes would so help with story time. Your list would be Godsent. I will make several; one for us and one for preschool then Christmas gifts. Thank you.

I was asking in a toyshop today for story cubes and they had no idea what I was talking about. So after a search on the computer, I came across your tutorial. My kids love homemade gifts, so this is ideal. Please send me some drawing idea. Many, Many thanks.

Oh my!!!! I was looking for a cheap seller of Rory’s Story Cubes and… You had the greatest idea! Why not involve my child in building our own cubes?!! Much more cheaper and fun! I don’t know if I’ll find some shop here in Italy where they sell wooden cubes to draw upon… but I’ll thank you forever if you could send me the pdf template all the same.

Hello! Please do send me the pdf file! I bought a big bag of wooden cubes at a local thrift store years ago (where clothes are a dollar a pound and toys are 50cents a pound!) thinking “These should be useful for something someday!” And now I know what! Thanks so much!

Hi there!
I would love a PDF of the drawings! Have just finished my teaching degree, and am madly making/collecting my own resources! 🙂
Both my own children, and those I teach will respond beautifully, I am sure!
Thanks in advance,
Phoebe

Love it! My child’s teacher recommended story cubes to me today. I looked them up and found your blog! I love your little pictures and would very much love the PDF of your drawings, too, if you don’t mind. Thanks very much for sharing this beautiful idea! Can’t wait to make some for my own children, and some as gifts!

This is a fantastic idea. I saw the commercial ones to purchase but they are too old for the children that I work with. Would love a copy of the PDF with picture ideas if you are still happy to share.Thanks Nicole

Thank you for the tutorial. My little girl has all of a sudden got really in to story telling and keeps asking ‘make a story mummy’. I was going to get her some story stones for her birthday but I fancy making these a whole lot more. Would love a copy of your prompts.

I’d be happy to share all the ideas I just came up with, if there’s a way to post it or if the blog author sends me her email? I decided to do an animal cube (all 6 sides have animals), a feelings cube, a character cube, etc, so that if we roll all of them there is a variety of topics to choose from. Cool!!

Hi there, I LOVE this idea. My 4yo and I are always telling stories to each other but she gets stuck on ideas, so Im going to make some of these for us for Xmas. I appreciate this is an older blog entry now but any chance you could send me some ideas for what to draw? Thanks!

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